For example - there is a claim that this might have something to do with why archaea don't produce antibiotics which would at best be an evolution just so story except for the part where archaea do produce antibiotics (eg Halocins)

And here is another doozy "“The surprise is that it’s in these relatively primitive organisms, which we know to be ancient,” -- uggh - these are modern organisms - they are neither primitive nor ancient

And this "Evidence for it had emerged only in eukaryotes, the multicellular domain of life that comprises animals, plants & several other kingdoms." except epigenetics is known in bacteria AND eukaryotes are not a $(&*&$# "multicellular domain of life" - what the actual fu*#@?

And sorry but to say epigenetics is hard to study in humans so therefore we should study it in archaea b/ they are easy is, well a bit crazy -- how about yeast? Drosophila? Mouse? Arabidopsis? Corn? I mean I love archaea, but Sulfolobus is not easy ...

And I have on and off carved pumpkins on sciency themes every once in a while.

So this year, when the Genome Center admins sent around an email saying they had bought pumpkins for people to use, I decided it would be fun to do something this year. But then 10/30 came and we had still not done anything.

So I came up with a crazy idea. Cut up pumpkins in different ways as an example of genome sequencing strategies. And, with the help of a few people in my lab and some of the people in neighboring labs, this is what we did.

So - first - we took three pumpkins.

And we decided to make one of them a representation of long read sequencing and another a representative of short read sequencing. So - using a saw provided by people in Justin Siegel's lab, I cut one pumpkin into horizontal slices and remove the innards and made that the "long read sequencing" example. And then I took pumpkin #2 and again cut into horizontal slices but this time I then cut those slices up into chunks. And we then stored the pumpkin pieces overnight and Katie Dahlhausen in my lab made some nice signs to add to the display. In addition, the decorated pumpkin #3 with some "Shotgun sequencing" motifs. And voila, we had our pumpkins ready for the contest for 10/31.

And then, after the symposium I decided - hey - we should try to reassemble these. I took some pics of this and made them into videos / gifs.Long piece assembly.
Assembling the long piece pumpkin shotgun was easy.

Anyway - this ended up being pretty fun. Lots of ideas about how to do it better (e.g., we should have barcoded / labelled the pieces so that we could guide the assembly if we failed to do it without guidance). And thanks to all the discussions with people out there and to the people in my lab who helped put this all together.

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Just got this email below. It is from a marketing person promoting Raphael Kellman's new book. And it has an absolutely dangerous, ridiculous claim in it. They claim that if you have memory loss, or mood problems, these are not in your head at all - this is caused my problems in your microbiome. What absolutely bullshit. Sure, the microbiome can impact the brain and mood. But to go from that to claiming that all memory loss and mood issues are due to problems with the microbiome. Dangerous. Deceptive. Scary. Snake oil.

But yes, I would be happy to write about your book. Right here. Right now.

Here is the email

Hello!

We are excited to announce the publication of The Microbiome Breakthrough: Harness the Power of Your Gut Bacteria to Boost Your Mood and Heal Your Body by Raphael Kellman, M.D. This revolutionary guide by the author of The Microbiome Diet offers a medication-free, scientifically-based approach to healing depression, anxiety, and brain fog by focusing on your “whole brain” – the brain, the gut, the microbiome, and the thyroid.

If you are one of the millions of people who feel that you have memory loss or an inability to maintain a balanced, happy mood, the problem is not “in your head,” it is in your microbiome (the trillions of health-promoting bacteria in your body) and your gut. In The Microbiome Breakthrough,you’ll learn about the latest cutting-edge science and discover the Whole Brain Protocol, a powerful four-week plan that advises you on what to eat and which supplements and probiotics to take, so that your brain functions at its best level. Along with delicious, health-supporting recipes, meal plans, and other tips and strategies, The Microbiome Breakthrough will help make your brain work better, enabling you to feel calm, energized, and clear headed without prescription medications.

We would love to partner with you to spread the word about this groundbreaking book from a pioneer in holistic and functional medicine. If you would like to review it on your blog or website, promote it on your social media or email newsletter, or host a giveaway, we would be more than happy to send you a copy.

Monday, October 29, 2018

Someone asked me about these T-shirts yesterday and I had forgotten about them. I had to contact Zazzle to figure out how to get back into the account. And I figured I would post a few links to them here. You can also see them at Zazzle here: Tree of Life Store

In reading this article I realized, as others have before me, that these tend to follow a simple script. Swab. Report on how dirty things are. But I decided to dig in a little more. And I have come up with a foolproof way to write such stories. Just follow these 13 steps. These do not have to be done in the order below.

Swab something

Send swabs off for testing with a microbiologist or testing company to make it seem like there is some serious science going on.

Bonus points for showing microscopes or bacterial plates or other science things.

Don't report the full methods or data. Just make it seem like you know what you are doing. Be vague some of the time. And use really big #s other times.

Report on the results that make things seem way dirtier than people might have expected. Say things like "Dirtier than a toilet seat".

Mention feces. Or fecal matter. Pretend or just flat out lie about how the testing you did shows that feces was in the samples.

Bonus points for telling people they "could" or better yet - "likely will" - get specific diseases from touching these sites even when there is likely absolutely no evidence regarding likelihood of transmission.